Nigel Slater Cookery Books - Need advice on which one please

[Earlybird]

I am considering asking for a Nigel Slater cookery book for my birthday, but need some help on which one to ask for. Which one would you suggest as a good introduction?

And following on from that, any evaluations/comments about his various books and what they're 'best' for would be helpful.

Thank you!

I've got his Real Cooking one and love it.

He's got a real enthusiasm for good food and its infectious... Not much thought for calorie control or budget though but his recipes are non poncey and very tasty

Real Fast Food is the one I use the most. Loads of different ideas for every main ingredient you can think of, all under 30 mins. The 30 min cook is also good but is world cooking rather than British so they work well alongside one another

Another vote for Real cooking. And I love that he is not too anal about 'following the recipe to the letter' ala Delia. Her cookbooks tend to annoy me, they're too rigid.

I also use 'real food fast' quite frequently.. good everyday food

I've got The 30 Minute Cook and have used it loads over the years.

Very tasty meals, simple recipes, for every day or for havin gpeople over. A section on vegetables (side dishes most of them), salads, fish, poultry, meat, grains, snakcs, a few desserts but not many.

Not child-friendly stuff, I assume you don't want family meals. Good if you like to cook nice food but don't want to spend hours over it.

pointydog - can you elaborate on the 'not child friendly' comment?

I'm hoping to expand my cooking repertoire (shouldn't be hard ), and hope that whatever I cook would appeal to fairly picky dd.

As spice mentioned, it is simple world cooking - bit of italian, morrocan, indian etc. Simple sauces and dressings for nearly all things. My kids don't like sauces and dressings, they wouldn't eat it. I wouldn't have thought many average kids would.

So, it's good food for adults mainly. Hmmm....will rethink if that is really what I want then.

Thanks for comments.

The Kitchen Diaries is lovely - all seasonal and fantastic to read. There are probably a fair few things in there for your dd too.

30 minute cook is great.

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I like The 30-min Cook - v childfriendly IMO. Not nuggets, shepherd's pie etc but decent food fast, which is what you need for kids.

wish it had pictures though - I love salivating over cookbook pics

Half the population are not better than average though, Cod

What I like about Nigel Slater is that his recipes can be quite exotic but they are adapted to use easy-to-find ingredients. They do not make you a slave to purism - there are plenty of other cookbooks that do that. NS is practical, so ideal for anyone starting out in the kitchen, or simply trying to break away from drudgery.

Cod, have you got all Rick Stein's?

hark at codon bleu

Real Cooking gets my vote, and while you're at it, ask for his autobiography (think it is called Toast). It is beautifully written but quite sad in places.

i know exactly what cod means, but i nevertheless like 30 min cook. curries are inauthentically yummy.

Well, we love Nige here - simple but some nice twists, easy to follow recipes, nice range of recipe types, love his writing style (agree with Basementbear about Toast).

My vote would be for Real Cooking as well - recipes listed by ingredients type, lots of really simple, easy things with fairly standard household ingredients - good for pushing you out of a rut.

I use Real Food a reasonable amount too - also have Appetite (a few nice recipes, but not enough in there) & Kitchen diaries (which I find too fussy & difficult to negotiate)

I haven't got 30mins book as i need pictures.

there's been a reprint,there are quite a few pix mow. i rarely use my copy of real fast food cos it's an unillustrated paperback.

My dh got real fast food when all he could cook was an omlette and now he has an idea of what to do with most things. If I want an idea of what to do with a piece of chicken in 10 minutes i look in there.
The kitchen diaries is like Nigellas how to eat - I took both of those to bed to read because it's an overview of a way of eating, not just a collection of recipes.

I'd say Appetite - vaguer recipes, but more that might allow you to stretch yourself and experiment. Have never got on with the Kitchen Diaries.

Well I love Nigel,I think he excels in simple food that idiots (like me) can follow.

And I read his Kitchen Diary as a bedtime book.